On Torturing Ayn Rand

There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.          Logan Pearsall Smith

I have Ayn Rand's chair. Really. Apparently she was a very close friend of an author in our small town and somehow gave her this grey vinyl upholstered chair on which she used to write her novels. I'd read one of her books, The Fountainhead and never read the other, Atlas Shrugged. How I acquired the chair was happenstance. I was at the dump the day my friend Colleen was going to unceremoniously toss the chair into the abyss below. I said, "Hey, Colleen, are you getting rid of that chair?" "Yes," she said, "You can have it, I'm moving and can't be bothered with a house sale." "Great, I need something comfortable for my deck." "Oh, you should know it was given to me by Ruth Beebee Hill who told me she got it from her dear friend, Ayn Rand who supposedly used to sit on while she wrote her novels." That incidence occured about ten years ago.

For the first several years I enjoyed sitting in the chair and moved it all around my garden, not an easy task as it was old, well made and therefore heavy. I carefully oiled the legs and put the chair out of the weather each fall. Then I started to be curious. I had been very reverent with this chair and wanted to know more about the former owner. I had read The Fountainhead when I was twenty and remember being impressed. However folks, I was twenty. Since I had her chair I thought I might look into her books again. I didn't like what I read. This was not great literature and I thought her money grubbing and selfishness were repulsive. Then I looked into her biography and found that she wasn't a real swell person. Sure, she got what she wanted, fame and lovers but she reputedly was a miserable human being. Not exactly someone I wanted to emulate or honor.

Funny how these things work, I lost interest in caring for the chair. What happened next happen very gradually. First I stopped oiling the legs, then I 'forgot' and left the chair out in the weather and it developed cracks in the wood of the legs and also in the upholstery. Then I abandon any thought of dragging the chair to safety through the winter and watched out the window as snow piled on it. I had my thoughts of, "gee, I seem to be torturing Ayn Rand." After several seasons like that with the cracked legs, the chair began to sag, bending gracefully toward the earth. Torture plain and simple and I couldn't make myself care.

Finally I said to my husband, "we have to do something about that chair." He said, "I was going to cut the legs off and throw it in the dump." How's that for irony.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2011 susan r. grout  all rights reserved

Why is it Important to be Amused?

Timing is the duct tape of comedy        
Laughter is the duct tape of friendship                            
love is the duct tape of family.       Susan R. Grout [1995]

Carpe them diems each day as a sage said

As I've previously mentioned, I feel that it's imperative to find something amusing every day. This is generally the first homework assignment I gave to my clients: be aware and amused. When I'm amused with life, it becomes more delightful with the emphasis on the "lightful". 

This delight can happen in unexpected ways, like the day I was working with a particularly difficult and depressed man. As occasionally happens, I started to join him in the downward, hopeless spiral, my mood affected by him. All of a sudden I noticed something was irritating me and I didn't know what. I happened to glance down at my leg. There, before my eyes, was a bulge under my black tights near my calf. I realized- to my horror-  a pair of underpants was lodged there. Unfortunately, I didn't notice as I dressed in the dark that morning. I could hardly contain myself and considered going to the bathroom to take them out. I certainly wasn't going to point out the bulge to my client figuring he just wouldn't understand. So I crossed my legs, hiding my carelessness. Happily the session was almost over. Also thank goodness the next client was a young woman. When I told her the story, the darkness, the underpants in the tights, she started laughing and then I joined her until tears rolled down our faces. I haven't forgotten how joyful our session was and that incident still amuses me.

The exception to the rule: someone who is both inherently and intentionally funny.

Something I've realized: there are intentionally funny people and inherently funny people.

Dad always made my Mom laugh, a laudable trait in a man

I come from a long line of funny people, some intentionally funny like my Dad who had a built in audience at home and his restaurant. He delighted in making his customers [and us] laugh. All my life I believed that his humor was unstudied and effortless. It was only after he died that we found, secreted in his desk, the little slips of paper encased in a rubber band, with hundred of jokes on them. Made us all cry but then laugh heartily at his closely guarded secret. Granted he was a naturally funny person and his timing was impeccable, but it was by no means effortless.

My Grandma Florence was one of those unintentionally funny people. One time she decided to transfer all her money from one bank to the one nearer her new home at my parents. I remember that day, she came into the house from the bus with a grocery bag filled with $88,000-- all the money she had in the world. In a paper bag! On the bus! When we pointed out to her that perhaps this wasn't the safest idea she ever had, she just held her nose and laughed and laughed. The thought!

Of course the most amusing of all in my book are little children. A favorite story concerns my son Zach and his cousin Naomi. They were about six years old playing out on the back porch with 'action figures'. Zach, in a rough voice holding his action figure says, "I'll kick your ass!" Naomi answers, "die for your sins." Ah, yes, different cultures. We who overheard this fell against the wall, out of sight, holding our sides.

My mother, bless her soul, was also an unintentionally funny person. I had been writing and submitting poetry for quite awhile and finally I decided to put together a little album of my poems and gave them to her for her 80th birthday. She thanked me profusely and never said another thing about them. Then at 89 years, we were playing Scrabble and talking about books as usual and she said, "poetry, I don't get it." Really struck me funny. So many people think these things but as my sister Trisha says, "if she thinks it she says it, no filter..."

More on funny stuff in another post, right now to amuse myself I'm going for a bike ride, the sun is shining and as my wise sister Sally says, "carpe them diems."

 You can have fun virtually anywhere.

susansmagicfeather 2014 copyright Susan R. Grout all rights reserved                       .